Updated: PS4 is getting one of its first Xbox exclusives this year in the form of Dead Rising. Capcom announced recently that it has plans to bring the original Dead Rising, Dead Rising 2 and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record to both the PS4 and Xbox One.
Original review below:
In an interview with the magazine EDGE the CTO (who chose to remain anonymous) said "PSVR was going to be terrible on a [launch] PS4. It was going to be truly awful. Something a bit more powerful starts to bring VR into range. If you want to deal with crazy requirements for performance in VR, you absolutely have to do this."
As you'll see from our review below, the PS4 is good for much much more than just PlayStation VR, but if the headset is something that's important to you then you might want to wait until after E3 2016, when Sony is expected to officially reveal the future of the PS4.
Sony's Playstation 4 is without doubt the front-runner in today's battle of the consoles. At the last count it had shipped well over 36 million PS4s around the world, with the competing Xbox One from Microsoft has only been able to shift around 20 million consoles.
We can pretty much call this generation of the console war as over - Microsoft has stopped reporting on its own console sales.
But with stellar showings at E3 2015 and Gamescom 2015 Microsoft is doing everything it can to create a bit of a renaissance this year.
Though 2016 sees Sony looking to deliver on the platform exclusive promises that we didn't see last year. And our Nathan Drake looks set to drop one of the most eagerly awaited titles of 2016.
What Microsoft hasn't got though is updated hardware and that's something the chunky, VCR-looking Xbox One needs to change.
Sony has.
The new PS4 hardware update, however, has been pretty low-key and is currently only available in 500GB trim. The current 1TB consoles out in the wild are all still running the older CUH-1100 series hardware - something to keep an eye out for if you're looking to pick up a new Playstation 4 this year.
This CUH-1200 series of consoles has had some pretty major refinements to its build, even if it isn't the anticipated 'slim' version that some were expecting.
What's new?
There are a few cosmetic changes to the design. For a start the two-tone finish of the original PS4 is gone, replaced by a complete matte black finish.
Something that's going to be more divisive though is the way Sony has replaced the touch-sensitive power and eject buttons with actual physical press-buttons. Being able to register when they've been depressed is sometimes preferable, but I never had a problem with the original's touchy-feely buttons before.
And these slightly wobbly, hollow-sounding buttons definitely feel a little cheaper.
But it's the internal components which have seen the biggest changes.
The actual motherboard itself is smaller and there are fewer memory chips arrayed around the AMD APU at the PS4's heart. That doesn't mean there's any less GDDR5 memory in the new CUH-1200 series consoles, Sony has simply used higher density Samsung 8Gb chips so it doesn't need to use as many of the 4Gb memory chips it previously used.
Sony has also used a re-designed Blu-ray drive inside it. Which probably goes to explain why you get less drive/disc noise from the new unit too.
The drive spins down a lot quicker and doesn't seem to have the same aural note as the original device.
Noisy neighbour
And noise is a key factor in the new design too.
It's subjectively quieter than the original PS4; almost noiseless when sat under your TV. That's also largely down to the fact the new PS4 runs cooler thanks to its lower power draw, which means the fans need to spin up less when the machine is being taxed.
It's really impressive what Sony has managed to do in terms of the power draw of the new CUH-1200 series of consoles, and that has had a knock on effect on the whole device.
At idle the new Playstation 4 uses around 20% less power and around 36% less when running in Rest Mode. When in that state the new machine is now drawing only 9W from the wall.
The most impressive change though is what's going on when the PS4 is running at full tilt in game. I ran a graphically-intensive section of The Last of Us Remastered on both consoles and while the original machine is hitting 151W at peak the new PS4 is only hitting 114W at most.
That's a huge saving in power - around 25% less.
Smart move
The manufacturing moves haven't affected the console's performance, just made it cooler, quieter and more efficient. And when Sony can do that with likely a cheaper bill of materials (especially given the simplified Blu-ray and less memory silicon) it only helps boost its margins.
And could also mean a price-cut this year might be on the cards. We may find out at this year's Paris Games Week after Sony avoided Gamescom 2015 to make a splash later in the year.
Elsewhere it's exactly the same as the original console which has so effectively claimed dominion over the current-generation console war.
The controller hasn't been altered and it runs exactly the same firmware revision as the standard console. There has also been no change in gaming performance - and so no move towards getting 4K gaming anywhere close. But that also means existing PS4 owners shouldn't be too worried.
What it does mean though is that if you're going to be buying a new PS4 this year you absolutely need to make sure it's this updated one. And that, at the moment, means limiting yourself to the 500GB version as the 1TB CUH-1200 series still hasn't found its way out into the wild.
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